


essentials

by Askance



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Experimental Style, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-25
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-17 00:23:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1367134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askance/pseuds/Askance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here is a childhood in slick-paper receipts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	essentials

Here is a childhood in slick-paper receipts. The dry smudged ink, the smell almost as familiar as the bitter nasal tang of motel coffee, the sticky scent of wet-wiped tiles in the little nests they made for themselves whenever there were greenbacks to buy a plate of french fries, enough nickels for a milkshake. Sometimes not even these—sometimes days with only stolen restaurant peppermints to suck on, toothpicks to gnaw on. Breakfast a rarity, lunch a treat, dinner an overt affair.

Little thieves when their father wasn’t looking, picking pockets in the dim early-morning chrome of truck-stop eateries. Dean an old fraud by six years, little fat fingers deft and sly. A dime here, a buck there. Eyeing hungrily the scanty leftovers left on scraped-off plates. A little scrambled egg, a little bit of sausage, a little more than the little they’d had, only left alone and unstolen because of the glares, because of the _looks_ , and John can’t be looked at, John can’t weather stares. Hurries his boys out with their stomachs growling. Credit cards, snap plastic only go so far, and the learning curve is a hard one to come aslant to. A brave new black and bitter world. And Dean is only seven, and Sam is only three, and both of them so hungry, so thin.

Rooms with leaks, with mildew, with dust. Sam comes down sick under the damp, always. Coughs his little lungs blue. Tiny squint-eyes hazel and bleary. Dean makes chicken noodle soup. Burns himself, raw red callouses on his fingers. Not enough for the both of them so he goes without. Dean, camouflauge soldier-boy by eight, his whole world muddy greens, shotgun clatter, gunpowder residue. The most golden glimmer that exists is the wail of headlights on wet windows. Autumn is dark and winter is darker and for two straight weeks a run of bad luck, no working heaters no matter where they drift, Sammy in his threadbare winter coat asleep, Dean with frostbite on his fingertips, John gone, John always gone. Little boys alone. Practise long division on receipts crumpled in their pockets to please the teachers who eye them hard.

More often than not no room at all. Leaning black car parked off the two-lane asphalt and two small bodies huddled in the back, spare shirts bunched up like pillows under little skulls, litany of passing vehicles like clockwork light-ray rhythms on the roof. Now one passing. Another. Could be a lullaby if Dean weren’t so cold and nine years old. Could be fireflies. Sam can’t open his eyes for fear of freezing, dreams about warm black spaces. John smells like whiskey and chill in the front seat. Dreams of fire.

Two dollars for a plate of eggs and bacon, too steep. One dollar fifty for coffee in some places—extravagance. Dean saves dimes for a week one summer until there are enough silver shreds in his palm for a piece of pie. Splits it with Sammy though it’s only a sliver. First sweet thing they’ve tasted in three months. John better now with cards, with pool tables; Dean better now with lockpicks and smirking fingers. Sam owns three wallets lifted from tall men’s pockets, and all have been emptied; none are filling back up. Here is a childhood in vacant leather, little fingers nudging on smooth edges, imagining them bursting with twenty whole dollars, a fortune. Enough to buy a new T-shirt. Enough to buy ten notebooks for wooden schoolrooms.

Dean, twelve, surprised to learn of broken legs and health insurance. Keeps to himself the memory of homemade plaster casts and fumbled stitching. Sam, eight, shocked that schoolmates throw away whole trays of food at lunchtime. Scrapes every bit of mashed potatoes from his styrofoam tray, sucks the fork clean. Passes all his classes. John uses his report card as a coaster for his drink.

Odd jobs when Dean is fifteen, lawns mowed, hedges trimmed, fences mended. Of course he sells himself. His hands, his muscle, hovers round the edge of the rest of his body, understands sneering looks, knows of leers. Fifteen dollars for a fuck. Ten for a suck. Fifteen dollars for Sam’s new calculator. Ten for meat on the dinette table; Sam knows. Cries himself to sleep, leaves wet spots on the pillow, begs him _never again._ Dean promises. _No, Sammy. Never again._ But can’t regret that four-function. Can’t regret that chicken breast, little brother’s grin, their full stomachs. Cries himself to sleep as well. John knows nothing but amber liquor and gunmetal grey.

Crooked teenage boys, wear layers not for cold but for quickness. Here is a childhood in hasty flights, motels ditched in the dead of night, teachers calling disconnected numbers, bemoaning the absence of the kids they never cared about at all. New state, new road, new osmosis. Who will sell Dean beer without asking for ID he doesn’t have? Who will quietly tick off discounts on their meals with pity’s eyes? Those kind, easy to pick out with green-sea eyes, smart and sharp, tall eighteen, small fourteen, bumping arms, tremulous love. Brother and brother.

Grown up hungry. Full up on one another.

And then Sam gaunt and gone, more money on his tongue than John or Dean can fathom. Orange California. Keeps secrets under his dormitory bed, sometimes lies awake to mime the cocking of a gun. _Can’t forget how, Sammy,_ Dean had said, throat full of tears, the night he ran. _Don’t you go soft on me._ No one knows him. Shadow boy; skips meals when he misses his brother most to feel the old familiar pang. Passes all his classes. Keeps report cards clean. Dean, alone. Dean roadside, topside, dreams of teeth, pulls black triggers to feel the shudder to keep him on his feet. Kick-back on his shoulder, jar him home. John a drunk. John a wreck. Dean, alone. Dean adrift and bitter. Thinks about the dimes he spent on sweet things for his little responsibility. Thinks about the ghostly handprints Sam left on his wrists, inside his pockets, Sam’s lean body, Sam crying, Sam all brought up broken, fractures never healed quite right. Dean a failure, hopelessly. Alone.

Four years. Here is an adulthood in a blur, smudged in freeway dust. Here’s the trick and trigger, the slip, the snap, John gone. _Stanford or Bust._ Wrestling match. Blue floors, a girl, a jealous quip, a word. Sam rucked up against the car and mouth smashed wide. White woman, smile, and swing inside.

Black car, black road, black night, again. Hungry brothers driving north away from fire and howl, one-way ticket to the lion’s den, quivering cowl of darkness. Poverty the monster on their heels but grinned back slick, crumpled up and thrown back, see—they make their way.

Fell. Hell. And roaring.


End file.
